Comments millwright has made

Honeybees

  Of far greater concern is the spread of various parasites from tended colonies to wild populations which are far more productive in terms of pollenating food crops.  

Part of this is reportedly due to indigenous wild bees particular genome which apparently has little resistance to disease built in. The worldwide trade in honey bees may be responsible for introducing these pests into a vulnerable population.

  Alas far too many of the "new complaints" moving into farming areas place far more emphasis upon a "perfect lawn" than upon the eco-system which supports their life-style as noted by regular visits by professional insect eradicators to their homes and lawns.  >MW    

millwright

GHGs and the U.S.

  Every time I think President Bush has his beer goggles on he ups and makes sense. He's wise to note what's important in the "global view" is not how much CO2 the U.S. generates; its how much it discharges into world wide circulation.  IOW its not the gross, its the net that counts.
 (There are some indications its a near zero sum game for the U.S. due to our advanced aggrarian practices and extensive foliated areas.)  

 If the present warming trend is valid and if its ever proven indisputably anthropogenic, and its causing a major global emergency, it then makes sense to deploy scarce resources in a manner achieving the most result for effort/wealth invested.  That means aiding China, India and other emerging industrial nations in "cleaning up their act" as the  most egregiouos current CO2 offenders. (We can safely postpone such aid to undeveloped nations in the Southern Hemisphere for the nonce as it appears from the record, "GW" hasn't crossed the equator.)  

To argue otherwise is to admit the current "GW crisis" is far more about economic heat, than  caloric/environmental.  

In a similar vein, before we embark on a GWR crusade we ought to define some benchmarks and goals.

1.  A climate history baseline that accounts for the Medieval Warm Period, the Maunder Minimum, and inexplicabe failure of the  much ballyhooed "New Ice Age" to appear on schedule. As well as verified explanations for emerging discovery of "discontinuities" such as plants, bones and other debris emerging from beneath melting glaciers.

2.   At least three "Climate Models" that successfully replicate known conditions when fed historical data and produce results congruent with alterations in that data before permitting their use as predictive tools.

3. Declaring a "Geoclimate Year" where the world's nations would undertake to discern, document and report both historical and current climate data by empirical and proxy methods.

4. Create a completely apolitical world congress of scientists, economists and engineers to examine Geoclimate data, and formulate reccomendations.  

5. Require the data and work of the nos. 3 & 4 be publicly available 24/7 without restriction, hinderance or editing.

6.  Declare an immediate world-wide moratorium on the international trading of CO2 "futures" or "credits" to continue in place until nos 1-5 are accomplished and the Congress determines such a program will enhance control.  

LTA s

 The problem with the concept is twofold. First is size, since like a ship in water these aircraft depend upon, to a greater or lesser extent, displacement of nearly the same weight of air.  A substance of much less density than water.  

  The second issue is speed. Such large, slow objects won't blend well into the air traffic structure. And the (im)possibility of creating dedicated airports boggles the mind.

Finally all such aircraft are altitude limited. Most of their operations would be confined to the troposphere where most of the weather/wind exists.  Not a good ride for passengers, not even so good for some cargo.  Yes, there is technology to improve the ride - used on all modern conventional aircraft, BTW - but mass,  control authority and structural limits exist, too.

 IOW, a nifty idea that could find niche employment.  Most likely on long distance over-water routes such as exist in the Pacific.  >MW
 

millwright

Water Vapor

 Truely amazed to read, (in a purportedly environmental site), "water vapour is not a natural part of the atmosphere". One has to wonder where the coommentator thinks natural precipitation comes from.  >MW

millwright

Africa

  Seems to me all one has to do is put photo safaris on the same basis as hunting ones. A fee per animal "shot".  Do the same things the same way, only with a camera.

Nice thing about hunting safaris is they're  a win/win/win.  The client gets the experience and trophy, locals and hunter get hire fees and meat, Game turns from a nuisance and hazard to an asset worth far more than a quick meal and a few bucks for parts. People protect assets.

Another issue is as human populations grow they, and their needs impinge upon game species. herbivores soon learn planted crops are far more tasty and nutritious than natural browse.  They compete with domestic cattle for grass. Predators and scavengers follow the food. >MW

millwright